• TLDR of my other submitted story; The Running Shadow Boy. Saw a teenage-esque shadow boy run loudly up the stairs in my home, brother heard him. First ever encounter.

• The Sitting Man: This one could have just been an instance of seeing things while half asleep and not real, but one night I woke up from a nightmare (don't remember the content of it) in a jerking motion that caused me to sit up. At the time I had a desk with a mirror on it right in front of my bed on the wall, facing the bed, so upon sitting up it was my focal point and I saw this. There was a man sitting on my bed side, right next to me in a way that when I sat up, his head was next to mine, facing the wall behind me. Think of the typical way that a parent sits with their child when they put them to bed. I stared at his reflection, thinking "is that really there?" He faded away in the span of a few seconds.

• The Claws: I had an old friend over and we were sitting upstairs in the loft. I was listening to her talk, when I felt a tingly sensation on my left arm in the crease area opposite the elbow. It was annoying me so I started to scratch it lightly. I scratched it in a motion parallel to my arm's length, never across it. The feeling was an odd one, like a little itch, but not quite the same. It felt like a little singe. I kept looking at my arm every few seconds, until I freaked out when I looked at it this time: I looked and saw that two small scratch marks appeared. So what, you were scratching yourself, you did it, right? I was scratching, but remember it was parallel to my arm. These were not. They resembled claw marks more than anything human (plus I keep my nails trimmed). It must have been my dog then, right? I explored this and it fell flat, too. I tried replicating the scratch with my dog's claws (weird, I know but I wanted to be sure). It didn't make sense. The scratches you usually get from breaking the skin get a scab on them. This scratch didn't. It resembled a burn mark. Skin was in tact, but it was red and inflamed, not broken. I showed it to my brother and he agreed it looked like a burn/ helped debunk that it was anything else. It took about a week to heal.

• The Ghost Man: my brother, mother, and I were chatting in the kitchen& dining room area right next to the glass back door. My dog was sitting in front of the back door, right next to the chair I was sitting in, looking outside. My mom and brother were standing in the kitchen next to the sink, which has a small window above it facing the backyard as well. So while we were talking, I suddenly heard footsteps outside. I heard the crunching sound of grass. My dog was unsettled, too, so she began to snarl and bark. I looked over as soon as I heard everything happening, and there he was. It was a man walking towards the window in the kitchen, next to my brother and mother. He was wearing blue jeans, white sneakers, and a white t-shirt. His head was balding as he looked to be in his forties. He was a Caucasian man. I saw him in clear detail, except for his face due to the speed at which this all happened. As soon as I saw him walking towards the window next to my family, I jumped out of my seat and yelled, "whoa! Did you just see that?!" He disappeared by this time. No more footsteps were heard, nor was he there anymore. My dog settled down. My brother claims he saw the man from the corner of his eyes, and that he was a shadow figure to him.

• The Watching Shadow: I was sitting at my computer on an ordinary day. My father was working in the garage when he left to go to the restroom. The restroom is in clear view from where I was at my computer desk thanks to the big glass doors in he office. The door to it lie directly across from me, through the doors. I felt a lingering feeling of being watched, you know the one: you're sitting minding your own business and for some reason you feel compelled to look in a certain direction. This is what happened to me. I looked over to where the bathroom door was, and there it was. A shadow figure, tall, standing there watching me. The instant I caught a glimpse of him, he walked away out of my view into the next room. I assumed it was my father going back to the garage, until I took notice at the crack under the bathroom door. The light was still on, the door still shut. He came out a couple minutes later. I felt uneasy for a time after that, looking over in that direction again and again for a few hours.

• The Giggle: I was going to get ready to sleep, so I got into bed, phone in hand browsing reddit. I'd just gotten comfortable, lying on my left arm, still browsing. After a couple minutes, over my shoulder I heard a really vivid, clear girly giggle. It sounded like it was coming from inside my own room, right behind me in the corner. My bed is extremely close to that corner, so I froze up. Every bump in my skin arose as I lie there frozen. Luckily, since I had been browsing reddit, phone in hand, I sent a text to a family member to come check it out. I didn't gather the guts to move til they got here. They looked around everywhere, even outside, and no one was there. You might say it could've been someone outside, but this giggle was super crisp, no muffling at all. I've heard people outside, and it sounded nothing close as this. You can hear people's footsteps, as light as they try to take them at this time of night, and there was complete silence this time other than this giggle right over my shoulder. This was my most recent experience.

• The Burning Nightmare: This wasn't an encounter, but I'll place it here because it was the single most vivid nightmare I've ever had that still resonates in my mind. I dreamt of a little girl, trapped in a hole in a wall next to my room that was burning. She was reaching her hand out of it yelling "help me" at me. That was such an unsettling dream due to the unusual nature of it being so vivid and dark. I had originally brushed it off as just an unusually bad dream, but after having had those singed scratch marks, and hearing the girl giggle, it has made me wonder if there's something more to it.

My home is relatively newly built. I seem to be the only one who has experiences in it, though. I've always been a skeptic of all this, until the day I saw the running shadow. It sparked my interest immensely, and I googled the subject. I found that my experience was not unique, that many others have seen shadow people. Then I googled again after having had that burn mark. Again, I found that others had experienced this. I never knew these things could happen until they did. While I am very curious concerning the other world, I am too afraid to try anything to contact it, despite a part of me wanting to. I fear since I appear to already be a target, it won't go well if I attempt something.

arcanum_